Iowanna Do that...The Color Wheel Never Stops

Figured I'd take a different approach today and not just talk about how my day went. I'm sure that's exciting and such, but it doesn't hurt to hear some of my thoughts (well it probably would cause I have a crazy insane thing inside my skull).

So coming to Americorps has definately been a bit of a cultural mouth dropper. It's just amazing to see how different people are around the country. Just hearing the different words people use to describe the same thing is always fun (like subs in MD, Grinders in Conneticut, Hoagies in other places). The music choice of some of the people is a bit weird to me, but I'm sure thats more of an individual thing and not so much a geography thing...right?

Well today I was taken back to the awkward race differences. Don't worry, no one's called me the N word here, at least not to me face. Wait, yes they have, just not the white people. Which is funny because the black people that use it here don't seem to mind using it in front of white people, which I guess was the same back in MD, it's just that I hung with mainly blacks and so the whites present didn't seem to mind. Oddly enough, I didn't really feel bad or odd when confronted with the word (someone challenge that please!!) but I'm starting to think I should have been offended.

In the car, one of the white girls on my team said something that I also feel like I should have been offended by, even though I wasn't. Yesterday was my birthday, and one of the white girls took pictures of me while I was blowing out the candles. She was showing it to another white girl in the group and then said, "Yeah you can't really see Jeremie because it's dark and he's black." Not really an offensive sentence to me, but I feel like I should have been offended.

I'm not really sure when it comes to being offended because I never get offended unless you talk about my family. I know that neither case was meant to offend, but just becuase someone's intentions aren't meant to offend doesn't mean you shouldn't be offended. Or does it? Food for thought I suppose, because when I chew on it a bit more I realized that my prior sentence shouldn't really exist.

I guess the point of this blog is to tell the sensitive people out there to go to the moon because most things that are offensive aren't meant to be that way. If someone accidentally steps on your shoe do you punch them in the face? Probably not, and if you do than kudos to you for wanting to go to jail and make something of yourself. Normal people would only get offended if someone intentionally stomped on their shoes. Overly sensitive people throw a hissy fit and hope whoever is there to catch it isn't more aggressive than they are (because then they look dumb when they back down, but that's neither here nor there or anywhere except my head).

The hard-to-find-confusing-nonsensible moral of today's story? Don't take offense unless the offender is obviously attempting to offend and/or if you want to go to the moon. Of course exceptions apply, so challenge me.

Iowanna do that...Day of Birth Edition

HAPPPPPPPPYYYY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Yup. I done did it again. Moved from one year of life into the next and it's feeling better than ever. I've never felt so loved or cared about in my life. My girlfriend sent me a birthday box with goodies in it, my mom sent me a card and some money, my team gave me some candy and a card, and my team surprised me with a cake and candles and sang to me! Haven't had anything near that in...well ever. Haven't had a birthday party thrown for me from non-family members in like 23 years so now I can say I've done that.

The shadow of today's magically delisciousness is the day itself. Not the "my birthday portion" but the actual day. Went to sleep around 1130 or 1145 and got up at 4 am. And this is after I've been excercising a lot more than normal pretty much every day for the past four days. My knees have water in it and have been bothering me and I'm definately not helping. All the meetings are tiring and the excercise is exhausting (though a bit refreshing). I'm happy to say that I haven't really been sore, so I'm not out of shape as much as I thought, but my knees are not playing very nicely. Plus we lost the ultimate frisbee (take that becca) game, but we gave the best team a run for their money. Most people lose by 15 plus points, and we lost by three. Not to shabby.

Overall it was a pretty good birthday. Wish I could have talked to my girlfriend a bit more, but I understand she's celebrating her birthday this weekend as well so I'll let it slide lol. Tomorrow should be fun. Might do a bit of celebrating and I'm def hitting the movies and seeing a free movie! Woot woot. Hopefully it's all fun and such.

Iowanna do that...still...kinda

So today was extremely long and tomorrow will be extremely longer...love my sentence structure ay (Joke for all you Canadian bammas). Def had to get up at 6am today, sit through three hours of lecture, eat lunch, go and hour of fitness testing, spend two hours in fitness/nutrition lecture, cook dinner, then play two ultimate Frisby games. All that would be well and good if I didn't have to wake up at 4:45 (am) the next day. And no my game isn't early. it's at 1020 at night...so I won't be asleep before 1115. Not so bad on normal occasions, but when you do as much as I listed, your body tends to oversized-female-dog slap you, if you catch my drift.

Shout out to Joanna my nom nom nommer! Happy birthday to you! Don't do something inapprops in the club...lol jk...but for reals...lol

Yesterday was pretty okay. Just meetings and Ultimate frisby and staying up late. Nada spectacular. Oh wait, I spoke...err...typed too soon (as if backspaces weren't invented yet). There was something spectacular! My team! Cedar three! We demolished our opponits in ultimate frisby! I'm not proud or anything, but I like to think that we wouldn't have made it to 15 without my four scores...just saying...it would have been wayyyy lower, like maybe 11 or something not as spectacular. HAHA jus kidding, I don't know math.

Sorry to jump around, but today was kinda specs too. We didn't play the two ultimate frisby tests yet, but we definately did a fitness test. Guess who smashed the record and got the most pushups? Who, me? Yeah I guess you could say it was me. With 87 pushups straight. Can anyone say on the military's wagon? Well if they could they probably wouldn't want to because it sounds dumb. But yeah, I was a bit proud of that number since two or three weeks ago I was at 60 or 70 something, and I def haven't worked out since being in Chicago.

Oh and my b-day is tomorrow...send me something

Enough...for now

Iowanna Do that 6 (best one yet)

So I missed a whole day of getting online because I was talking to my girlfriend, but it was good. Found out some saddening news, but we got through it and we're stronger for it.

Today in Iowa was long like the lines at the DMV! Had to do a driving test for the vans out here and I passed, but it was mad boring. I feel like that Mr. Daisy black guy that drives around Mrs. Daisy in that movie..."Driving Mrs. Daisy" or some jibber jabber. Being the only black guy in the car, things got a tad bit awkward when they started talking about Roots and how they didn't understand a lot of it. Set em straight though, at least the censored and "white-friendly" version of straight. So now I get to do even more work without more pay, gotta love Americorps (you really do though or you won't have fun).

My team seems a bit cooler today, but they have nothing on my G. Unit squad. We ran things and now that they chopped off our legs by putting us in different teams, we just have to roll things instead. That didn't make any sense but if you're reading this you probably know that most things I say don't make any sense....cause they make dollars!! Try to get that lol.

So I discovered that I'm able to send and receieve video texts! Yay for choppy, skype-like text messages that fall short to the real thing!! Good enough to make me smile and thats all that matters these days.

So blown there's still water in my knee. I feel like my mother and she's like 1000 years old. Great. She passed on her old genes to my young body and now my legs don't work (I soooo want to add a joke about jeans and genes and legs and stuff, but I'll spare you this time). I hope it's all healed by the time physical training, or whatever PT stands for, starts because if I can't even run I think I might get my personal training certification set on fire. Got until Friday so we'll see how that goes.

As if Iowa and Americorps have some divine power to change God's plan for time, days seem to be getting longer here! Egad. Terrible I know. Maybe someone should just come up here and knee chop me a few times so I can get out of meetings on disability or something lol. Just warn me before you burn me.

Iowanna Do That 5

So yesterday me and some friends from Americorps took Vinton by storm. The bar we hit was pretty small, and 40 of the 47 people inside were from Americorps. Apparently some people got kicked out for underaged drinking. SMH. I had to help carry my stalker out because she was falling all over herself and such. Glad she had friends cause I wasn't about to walk her to her room and have her boink me on the head with a baseball bat; she'd probably steal some babies from me and leave me naked in the woods or something.
I still have never been drunk or really feel the effects of alcohol, so if you're reading and you're in my family, breath easy. I'm okay lol. Loved having a day off finally and it finally gave me enough time to cook a lot of food and chow down. I'm losing weight!! I looked in the mirror and felt skinny. Ew. I need to hit some heavy weights and I need to do it soon before I get picked up by a tornado and blown into Canada.

Iowanna do that (part 4)

So today was easy. Only had one boring meeting that wasn't even that boring. About being safe and such, though every time they talk about safety I feel less safe. They keep talking about how there's asbestos, mold, poisenous snakes, spiders, easy-to-tip vans that we gotta ride in, and random visitations from previous and possibly disgruntled employees. Way to go.
So my life is always filled with people doing off the wall things, and today some random girl stole my number. This has happened before by the way. Chick was just going through my phone and i'm thinking she's just being nosey, but then I get a text from her. It took me a while to figure out it was here, but she def saved her name and everything into my phone. Smh at girls these days.
Finally saw Dinner for Schmucks. Hilarious.
Also opened a bank account today. Got ten free dollars from it. Ya'll know I can't pass up free money.
P.S. if you want ten bucks let me know and I'll refer you for the money.

Iowanna do that (Part 3)

So on the third day of MDmiss I realized playing soccer and basketball for four hours is generally a bad idea. I don't think I'll be able to walk without a limp for at least a week. Luckily the PT doesn't start up until next Friday. So far the meetings are still sleeping pills but the pill are all cool. Played monopoly yesterday but didn't finish because it got too late. Whodathunkit.
Lol I wonder how many people here think I'm a clown for wearing my pants the way I did the other day. Being a person with sense, I like zippers. These uniform pants use buttons and I didn't see how many buttons since I got dressed in the dark (which I realize is also a bad idea for the most part)I didn't button them up right. So i was walking around with giant gaps in my jimmy region and no one said anything. lol guess the people up here are also a lot quieter than those in MD.
We went grocery shopping yesterday and definately blocked the isles. Again, no one said anything. People are too nice up here. If we didn't see them they would have never made it through. Come on Iowans! Give yourself a voice. However will little tommy eat his lettace if you don't tell the Americorps members that they're in your way?
Oh well, guess patience is a virtue. I'm definately learning that up here. At least I don't have to get up early tomorrow. Looking forward to finally sleeping in.

Iowanna do that

Day 2 and it's a little better but still not like being around free food. The people are really the only thing keeping me sane right now. The rules are just annoying, and the training speakers are really serial killers trying to bore us to death. It almost worked today. Luckily I got a hold of a basketball and got out some stress.
On a lighter note, my mom told me I passed my certification exam for personal training...so that can sit on a shelf with my English Degree lol.
Also found out they didn't tell me that I have to find my own transportation to and from the airport so I don't know if I'll ever get to go home before november. I gotta keep reminding myself that I did this to help people, not to feel comfortable. Woosah. At least there is free food!

Iowanna do that

So I'm finally here. Iowa. Cornfields and cows are my neighbors and I'm not happy yet. It's only the first day but it's not looking too bright so far. I'm hoping it's like wine and gets better with time, but so far they've royally screwed me. I feel like one of King Henry's wives (the ones unlucky enough to lose their heads). They put me in a room with no internet and ten guys. They all seem cool, but I feel like I'm taking steps backwards. I was in an apartment and now I'm back in a dorm. Either way, all I can do is keep pushing and hope it gets better. The only plus so far is that the people all seem cool enough.
I've also entered into a new relationship (2/11/11) and I'm hoping it doesn't get too strained. I've give it my all and hope for the best. Wish me luck.